German Camry Headlight

[Toxygene]

I'm looking to purchase on Ebay some German Camry Headlights. It seems they use H4 bulbs and have a superior beam cutoff.

They also seem to use an H1 bulb.

My question is whether they use the H4 bulb for low beams only and the H1 as a highbeam or if they use the H4 and it's low and high beam and then use the H1 bulb as a fog light inside the headlamp?

Does anyone know?

Here's a picture of the German Headlight. It's very slight but you can see where the glass has diagonal cuts in it just like Hella headlights:

German Headlight



US Headlight


It might also make for a better HID retrofit due to it's better beam cut-off and also since the Germans drive on the same side of the road as we do.

Thank's for any help!

[touringcamry]

Don't use those for HID. Just because the cutoff is better for halogen bulbs does not mean it's better for HID capsules due to the fact that the light output from an HID capsule is completely different from a halogen bulb with filament. The glass lens was designed with the output from H4 in mind, not a D2S or D2R.

There are cars that don't have projector/elipsoid lamps and have HID, e.g. IS300, but the reflector was designed with HID capsules in mind, these Camry lamps were not.

[ASG14]

Same as the Australian light. The H1 is the high beam, and the H4 is BOTH a high and low beam. It's weird, I know. but as said above, won't make the HID's better.

[midnightmach]

The inner light is a fog light.

The h4 would make HIDs WORSE! they would increase glare much more than a 9006 reflector bowl. There is no cutoff in reflector type headlight. You need projectors.

[bigbird]

yall may be forgeting that H4 HID kits can be had with bulb shrouds. now i cant speak for these headlingts. but the gen4(not 4.5) ones work perfectly fine with HIDs and they are H4. mine had little glare(though no cut off) because of the shroud around the bulp provided by the HID maker(modexpress). im gonna say youd have to try this to know for sure.

and the 9006 reflectors on teh gen3 with HIDs is much, MUCH worse then the gen4 with HIDs. been there, done that and it was horrible...worse then stock.

[Toxygene]

So, I'm getting two different responses on these head lights and the use of the H4 and H1 bulbs.

Now remember this is from the Gen 3 body style and not the 3.5 which I believe in Japan used the secondary bulb as a fog light. If these do the same great, but I'd like to verify that before I get them.

HID lights might or might not be something I try. These will be going on my In-laws car and if the H4 conversions with a full shroud can be made to work with little to no glare then I'd be interested. Only way to find out though is to give it a shot. That's something I might try before even installing the headlights on the car though.

[bigbird]

thats alot of work for the inlaws car. id just get some depos and be done. if you get the headlights, i wouldnt go HID. just leave them halogen, that will be plenty of light.

[Toxygene]

Originally Posted by bigbird

thats alot of work for the inlaws car. id just get some depos and be done. if you get the headlights, i wouldnt go HID. just leave them halogen, that will be plenty of light.

Until I see someone post up the beam pattern of the Depo head lights, I'm not really jazzed about their quality. Nor am I interested in the stupid US spec version of our headlights which might as well have the picture of a flashlight on it for all it's useful lighting properties.

[touringcamry]

Originally Posted by bigbird

thats alot of work for the inlaws car. id just get some depos and be done. if you get the headlights, i wouldnt go HID. just leave them halogen, that will be plenty of light.

Yer...nothing like OEM reliability. While you might have some electrical knowledge, if you change anything get the Depos and leave the wiring alone. That way if something happens, you won't be the only one that knows what's going on with the headlamps.

[Toxygene]

It's not that big a deal for me as far as rewiring.

So can anyone tell me how the H4 and H1 bulbs are used in those headlights?

[bigbird]

well if its H4 then they are the high and low beams. the H1s would be used as driving/foglights. H1s are rarely used as anything else. theres nothing wrong quality wise with the depos, but because the lense is clear the light patern is...odd. the main light comes in a 2 beam pattern, not much spread and not real even.

if light output is the main concern then it would prolly be smart to see the light output on thoes euro spec lights lights. the scepter lights are the same so id try to find a member with thoes lights and see if you can get pics.

try prnc_chrmng, hes got thoes lights.

[RelishGTP]

In Australia we have the same light setup as those German lights.
The H4 is used as high and low, the H1 is used as high also (not fogs).

The same rule apply's to both Gen4/4.5 and Gen5/5.5 in Aus, the only difference being the later models use HB3 for the highs as opposed to H1's.

[Toxygene]

Originally Posted by RelishGTP

In Australia we have the same light setup as those German lights.
The H4 is used as high and low, the H1 is used as high also (not fogs).

The same rule apply's to both Gen4/4.5 and Gen5/5.5 in Aus, the only difference being the later models use HB3 for the highs as opposed to H1's.

I'm not doubting you in the least, however I'd like to make sure. The Scepter in Japan uses those secondary lights as fog lights if I'm not mistaken on the 3.5 headlight. If it is a double high beam fare, then that makes wiring a little bit more simple for me and gives me the option to try and use an H4 HID bulb with a shroud for the low beam and a regular bulb for high beams. Or, I could use a regular H4 bulb for high and low and use an HID H1 as an auxiliary beam for when our family drives out into the desert roads that get pretty dark out here.

If in fact the secondary H1 bulb is used for fog lights instead. Then that'll give me other options as to how I want to wire it all up.

Thank you all for the info so far!

[bigbird]

that simply depends on what you want that H1 to be...it can be a driving light, fog light or highbeam, hell you could turn it into a goldfish bowl if you want to. since you dont have an asussie car then you can wire that thing up any way you want...hell you dont even have to uses the H1 if you dont want to. H4 is made with high and low filiments so thats should be all you need. if you wanted to wire it up like the aussie ones then youd have to wire it up to the highbeam circuit.

[Toxygene]

Originally Posted by bigbird

that simply depends on what you want that H1 to be...it can be a driving light, fog light or highbeam, hell you could turn it into a goldfish bowl if you want to. since you dont have an asussie car then you can wire that thing up any way you want...hell you dont even have to uses the H1 if you dont want to. H4 is made with high and low filiments so thats should be all you need. if you wanted to wire it up like the aussie ones then youd have to wire it up to the highbeam circuit.

Not really.

Just because I wire it up to be a highbeam doesn't mean that the housing is going to project the light like a highbeam should if it was meant to be a fog light. The same is true if I try to use it as a fog light and it splays the light all over the place like a high beam. Just because I wish it so, won't actually change what ever it actually is. I'm merely asking so that I can properly use the housing, while seeing at the same time what if any options exist in my mind for modification.

From what I've found, from some minor research, it seems that another car I was looking into also uses the H1 bulb as a high beam in Europe. So it seems that ASG14 might be correct according to my preliminary research. I might ask one of the fellows selling their headlights on E-bay in Germany for more info. Hopefully they'll understand me...